Friday, December 28, 2007

Promotional marketing is a great way to build your business. Promotional marketing is often overlooked by many business owners. McDonald's and Las Vegas Casinos have taken full advantage of promotional marketing techniques and you should do the same. Promotional marketing can be very effective when employed correctly. We will take a look at a couple of companies who use promotional marketing in their marketing campaign. Many successful companies understand the whole point of business is to get you in the door. If you notice Las Vegas does not advertise their slot machines or game boards, instead they advertise the Las Vegas lifestyle. They just want to get you there, full well knowing once you are there you will gamble.

First let's look at McDonald's. McDonald's does not have the best tasting food or the healthiest food but McDonald's is still one of the most successful restaurant chains today. Why? Two reasons first McDonald's buys real estate in key locations and second they employ effective promotional marketing techniques. Let's take a look at the techniques they use. If you notice McDonald's does not list the benefits of eating their food, why? Their food is not the best food around so they can't. Instead they have a ton of promotional techniques. Remember the beanie baby craze? This was started by McDonald's. McDonald's just sold new beanie babies every week. These beanie babies were going on Ebay for hundreds of dollars. Do you see the whole strategy behind this? See all they wanted was to get you in the door. Full well knowing once you were inside of a McDonald's you would most likely also buy a hamburger and fries besides just a beanie baby. They also employ the same strategy with their Value Meals, Happy Meals, Monopoly Game Sweepstakes, and Dollar Menu.

Next let's look at Las Vegas. Las Vegas casino's are masters at using effective promotional marketing. Las Vegas Casino's are their for one reason and one reason only and that is to make money. Las Vegas casino's do not advertise about gambling, instead they focus on the Vegas lifestyle. "What Happens In Vegas Stays In Vegas!" is one slogan they have going. They advertise the free rooms, the Vegas nightlife, the Vegas shows, and boxing matches. Their whole goal is just to get you inside of their casino. Knowing full well once you are inside the odds are in their favor you will gamble and lose. It's genius marketing.

Now granted you may not have the spending budget of a McDonald's or Las Vegas casino but you can still use promotional marketing for your business. For example you could give out a free Vegas vacation for the 1,000th customer. Or you could give out little things like a free car wash for the first 100 customers. The main thing to remember is to make sure you give out something of value and your promotional marketing efforts will be effective.

Multilevel marketing or MLM is a very popular business these days. Multilevel marketing has taken on a life of it's own. Many people have made tons of money from multilevel marketing and others have been scammed completely by multilevel marketing companies. What makes building a multilevel marketing business so tough? Why do so many people not make any money in multilevel marketing companies? I will answer these and other questions in this article. I will also go over what to look for before joining a multilevel marketing company. Not all multilevel marketing companies are bad companies, there are some good companies out there, it is just a matter of you finding them. Remember there is nothing free in life, everything has a price. There is no such thing as something for nothing. It takes dedication and effort in order to succeed, which brings me to my first point.

Many MLM companies advertise with the get rich quick mentality. I'm sure you've seen the ads like "Make a million overnight" or " Learn how I made $150,000 in 48 hours!". Most of these ads are false. It just does not happen for the average person. Many MLM companies use ads like these as their hooks to get people to sign up. Many MLM companies are playing on people's greed. I am not a believer in it's too good to be true because it is very possible to earn large amounts of money. But earning large amounts of money requires work, period. You will have to put in effort to make the money they are talking about.

Next you have to look at the compensation plan. Why? Many multilevel companies have screwed up compensation plans. Actually do the math and see if it makes sense. I have seen compensation plans where you could have one thousand people in your downline and still not be making any money. Many MLM companies are setup this way so the MLM company is the one making any real money.

You also want to look for a product. No product and it is a pyramid scheme. You should also be able to just sell the product alone without ever having to recruit anyone.

Now many people cannot make any decent money with MLM's because they are not producing enough numbers. It is all a numbers game. Many people join an MLM company and then told to write a list of their warm market. After they are then told to invite them to a hotel meeting, or a conference call. Most people spend all week trying to get 1 or 2 prospects to sign up. Going after 1 or 2 prospects a week will never build you the downline you will need. There is a high turnover rate with MLM companies people quit all the time. In order for a person to be effective they must have a large number of prospects joining every week. Most people have no clue how to do this which is why they end up failing. There is a stat which MLMer's use, they say the average person who joins a MLM company will only bring in 2 new prospects. Becoming successful in an MLM company is all about getting a large number of prospects to see what you have to offer weekly.

Affiliate marketing can be a great way for a person or business to make money. Affiliate marketing is very often over looked but affiliate marketing can be a win-win for every party involved. Affiliate marketing helps out every party in a variety of ways. First off many people are looking to make an income online. Many people do not have the means to build a large business and they most likely do not have the name recognition many of the larger companies have. So affiliate marketing can make sense for someone looking to make money online because they are normally given all of the marketing tools needed to market the company, such as banners, links, and signature links. Affiliate marketing makes sense from a business point of view because affiliate marketing allows a business to have thousands and thousands of free salesmen trying to sell their product. It is also a huge win for businesses because they do not have to pay salaries or benefits, businesses only have to pay when an affiliate makes a sale. And they only have to pay a percentage of that sale. From a business point of view it is like free money.

Affiliate marketing can be great for the person looking to make money online. A majority of the time all of the setup work is done for you by the company. All you have to do is drive traffic to your links or banners. Normally most companies pay out about 10% of the total sales per customer, it just really depends on the company. Companies love having people join up as affiliates since it is like free advertising for the company. In order to make a lot of money as an affiliate you must have one of two things. You must have a lot of traffic and clicks going to your links and banners. Or you must sell high ticket items or work for companies which give out a nice affiliate percentage. Affiliate marketing can make you a lot of money but it does take work, it is not something that happens overnight. Many people have learned this the hard way.

Affiliate marketing can be great for a business because affiliate marketing will help produce sales. Many Fortune 500 companies use affiliate marketing as a way to help increase sales. What makes affiliate marketing so great for so many businesses is the benefits offered through affiliate marketing. You can literally have hundreds of thousands of marketers selling your product for you, at no cost to you. All you do is pay a percentage when they do make a sale. That is pure profit, plus having affiliates sell your product does not come with the headaches of having employees. One thing to remember the better you take care of your affiliates the better affiliates you will have selling for you. Some companies offer huge bonuses, cars, and vacations to their top affiliates.

Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn money whether you are a marketer or a business. You should take full advantage of the benefits of affiliate marketing.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

An idea can make all the difference and that is why your make money from home business idea will either make or break you.

This is also the reason why you may just benefit from the little known brilliant make money from home business idea that you are about discover in this article.

Before You Implement The Idea, Carefully Examine Your Make Money From Home Business Site Traffic

What kind of traffic are you attracting at the moment? How much can you find out about your typical new visitor and your regulars as well? All this are key questions you will need to ask yourself and to answer about your site if you are going to end up implementing your make money from home business idea successfully.

Admittedly not every webmaster or home business owner has the necessary tools to accomplish this task. Amazingly some site owners do not even have a basic tool for tracking and analyzing their traffic. This is a big mistake. It is very important for you to be able to track your traffic and to know exactly where it is coming from because one of the ways that you can use this information is to help you increase your traffic even more by simply doing more of the things that are gaining you traffic.

Identify The Products And Services Your Traffic Will be Interested In

The next step is to make a list of the possible products and services that your traffic may be interested in. If you use Google Adsense ads on your site, just looking at the ads displayed on your site can be one useful way of identifying some of these products and services that may be of interest to your audience.

Once this has been done, you can approach those companies and offer to generate hot leads for them in return for a small fee for each lead you produce. Many times you will find that this make money from home business idea beats creating your very own product or service. Apart from you not having to go into all the trouble of delivering to the client as well as getting involved in the production process, this idea allows you to represent a number of companies and businesses at the same time. Chances are that you will be able to make much more money from this home business idea than if you were to sell your own products and services.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Postcard marketing is a very effective way to market your website, product or service offline. Many online business owners over look postcard marketing. In order to market to a potential customer effectively you must use all forms of marketing both offline and online. Using all approaches to marketing will help increase your sales. Many marketers especially online marketers only use email marketing and autoresponders to get their sales messages across. Email marketing is not a bad way to market but in order to get the most out of your marketing efforts you should also employ postcard marketing. Many online marketers will not go the extra mile of sending out letters and postcards to their potential customers. This gives you a great edge over your competition.

First you must decide whether you are going to use postcards or letters. I would suggest using a combination of both, as both can be very effective in your offline marketing campaign. Sales letters are great to send in the mail. With emails you are never sure if your message is getting through but by sending letters you can be one hundred percent sure your message is getting across. Now I am not saying not to use email marketing and autoresponders they are also highly effective. But when you use both it gives you a true professional presence. If you also follow up with a sales call you have covered all of your bases. You only have to send out one letter per month, it does not have to be more than this, as long as you have them plugged into your autoresponder. And as long as you have made a sales call. If you have not plugged them into your autoresponder and have not made a sales call you have to get them in your opt-in list and make the call, for the best results.

You should use postcards for holidays. When using postcards for special occasions, like birthdays, or holidays do not advertise. Just send a simple message wishing them a Merry Christmas or whatever the occasion or holiday maybe. Advertising on holidays or special occasions in your postcards can come off tacky. So don't do it. It is better to build and develop a lasting relationship with your potential customer than to try and sell them on every occasion.

Using a combination of offline and online marketing techniques will really help your business succeed. It will also give your business a professional presence that many companies and businesses do not have. You should also add promotions to your marketing efforts. People love free things. Throwing in a free trip or free appliance will help you create new business. If you notice many Fortune 500 companies are always throwing in free trips, free add ons, and all kinds of other free things to help entice customers to buy their product or service just to get the free product. Take for instance McDonald's, they have their Monopoly giveaway game. Many people who normally do not eat at McDonald's purchase food their just for a chance to win something. This is promotional marketing.

Using postcards and letters as a marketing tool is a great way to build your business.

Mostly everyone online is trying to learn how to start marketing their websites. Marketing websites can seem like a very tough thing to do. Many people have no clue how to market their websites. I think one of the main reasons people have trouble marketing their websites is because of the lack of the right information online currently.Many people are sadly misinformed about how to market their websites correctly. Many people are using marketing techniques which are highly ineffective and may end costing tons of money. Many people trying to make money online are duplicating failure. Many people are heavily marketing to classified ads, FFA's, and other places which do not work at all. I will go over a couple of techniques to effectively start marketing your websites.

First you must decide if you are going to start marketing your websites online or offline. Both ways can be veryeffective and I would suggest using both. Offline marketing can tend to be a little more costly, so you will need some money to effectively start marketing your websites. One way to market your website offline is to buy drop cards. Drop cards are effective because you can drop them practically anywhere. Making a trip to the supermarket, drop a card. Making a trip to the bank, drop a card. Simple. Another way to effectively market offline is to buy ad space in major newspapers and major magazines. This can be very pricey, but it is also very effective. Offline marketing is often ignored but I would not suggest it. Offline marketing can be a powerful way for you to market your websites.

Online marketing can actually be very simple. In order for you to start marketing your websites effectively, you must be consistent and work these techniques daily. For instance writing articles and press releases can be a very effective, but you must write consistently. If you do not write consistently using articles and press releases to market your websites will not work. Writing one or two articles a month will not bring you the type of traffic you are looking for. In order to be truly effective with articles and press releases you must at least write one or two a week. The great thing about writing articles and press releases is it is completely free. You can write as many articles and press releases as you want and they will bring you great results. Remember the key to writing articles and press releases is to write them consistently. Another way to effectively market your website online is to post useful comments on forums and be sure to add your signature with your link.

The key to marketing your websites effectively is to be consistent in your marketing techniques. Any marketer worth his weight knows you must market on a daily basis in order to be fully effective. It takes at least 7 exposures for the average person to purchase something. When marketing your website being consistent is the name of the game.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Most business owners do not have any marketing plans. Marketing plans are very important to have for a business. Marketing is the key to sales. No marketing, no sales, it's that simple. Having a variety of marketing plans going at one time gives you more leverage and more exposure. It also helps you see what is working and what is not working in your marketing campaigns. Having only one marketing plan in action can actually hurt your business. Let's say your marketing plan proves to be ineffective, you must then build a whole new marketing plan and start from scratch. Now let's say you have multiple marketing plans working at once, you now have a variety of results to look at. Then you can pick and choose what works and what doesn't work. Marketing is all about testing/trial and error.

Many business owners make some key mistakes when creating their marketing plans. First they expect their first marketing campaign to be a huge success. Now this may or may not happen but marketing is all about trial and error. You must learn from your marketing plans. You must look and see what worked and what did not work. Then adjust your marketing plans and start a new campaign.This is how you market effectively. It's all about trial and error. Let say you see a certain ad pulling in all kinds of new business. Before you jump the gun and throw your entire bankroll behind the ad, run a couple additional tests to see how well the ad pulls in different markets. You want to do as much testing as possible before you come out with a major marketing campaign. Once you have everything as it should be, take full advantage of your marketing efforts.

Another key mistake I see with many business owners is they have either no way of tracking their marketing campaigns or they do not track their marketing campaigns. Not tracking your marketing efforts is bad for business. You must be able to see what is working and what is not working. Then you can stop spending in certain areas and increase spending in areas which are working.You must track your marketing campaigns in order to produce the most amount of sales for your business. Yes you can still have an effective business without tracking your marketing but it is kind of like cutting a steak with a butter knife.Yes it is possible to cut a steak with a butter knife but you make cutting the steak so much more difficult. Just like not tracking your marketing campaigns.

Building effective marketing plans is vital to building a business. Marketing is a key component to business. You should always have a budget setup just for your marketing efforts. I cannot stress how important marketing is to any business planning to become successful. I would even go as far as hiring a marketing company, if you have no experience in creating effective marketing plans.

Business owners need to use a variety of marketing strategies in order to build a successful business. Many business owners do not use multiple marketing strategies when building a business. This is a key reason most businesses end up failing. Marketing strategies are essential when building a business. Having one marketing strategy is great but in order to make the most out of your business you should employ lots of different marketing strategies . Your marketing strategies do not have to be complicated, in fact the simpler the better. Having a complex marketing strategy does not necessarily mean it will achieve better results. In most cases the most basic marketing strategies have achieved high levels of success for me. There are many ways to market both offline and online. You should use a combination of both to reach the most consumers. Your marketing strategies should also be tailored towards your targeted consumer base.

Your offline marketing strategies should include flyers, letters, business cards, and drop cards.Flyers are great to pass out at large events, depending on what you are selling. For instance conventions are perfect for flyers. Passing out flyers at ball games, malls, and church events is not really effective unless your product is in line with one of those themes. Finding a convention inline with what you are selling is priceless. For instance if you sell computers, passing out flyers at a convention centered around computers would help you increase sales. Setting up a booth would also help. Sending actual letters to your current customers and local community is also a great way to find new and repeat business. Lastly sponsoring events for your local sports teams, youth organizations and churches is a great way to build a relationship with your local community. Free promotional give always are a great way to gain new customers. Take a look at Mc Donald's they do an excellent job of this with the free toy which comes with every happy meal. And their monopoly game brings in huge amounts of business. The key is to offer people something they want, like a free appliance or something. Promotional giveaways can really help bring new business to you.

Some online marketing strategies are writing press releases. Press releases are a great way to get your business out in the open. Another way to get free publicity although it is not online marketing is to build relationships with your local papers. Having a paper write a story about your business will give you instant creditability and lots of exposure. Using Pay Per Click is also a great way to build your business online. With pay per click you must know what you are doing or have someone who knows what they are doing in order to be effective. You will also need at least a budget of 1,000 dollars a month depending on what keywords you are going after.

These are some very basic marketing strategies but they can be very effective if used properly.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Quality ideas or brilliant ideas usually make a huge difference in any business but more so in the home business. In fact it starts with the idea behind the home business itself.There is no denying the fact that in many cases a simple idea has taken off like a rocket and lifted a business from nothing into a billion dollar enterprise within a very short time. So how does somebody come up with a compelling business idea for their home enterprise? Here are a few guidelines that make all the difference.

The Power Of Focus In A Home Business IdeaNot many people realize just how powerful the concept of focus can be. We can see it in life all around us all the time. For example the sun's powerful rays are scattered all over the earth and that is why they do not cause any harm. However if you use a small magnifying glass and focus those rays on a certain point, it will ignite a flame Alternatively a laser beam is many times weaker than the rays of the sun but by focusing them tightly to a point, they are able to do much more, like cut through a diamond, for instance.

To give the example of Google Inc. The whole company was focused on one thing and one thing alone. And that is a revolutionary new search engine. At least that is what it was at the time, today it is a behemoth of a company straddling the World Wide Web.The lesson here is simple. The tighter the niche that your small home business idea is focused upon, the better it will turn out. And also the higher the chances of your business being successful.

Your Home Business Idea Should Solve A ProblemBrilliant ideas are the kind that solves a problem and the more pressing the problem, the better. There are quite a number of very successful home businesses based on ideas that address various health problems we face.In fact you just need to take a closer look at virtually any successful business and you will find that it is based on an idea that solves a problem. So all you need to do to come up with a brilliantly profitable home business idea is to look around you for problems. The more serious and pressing that problem is, the better the business idea that you will end up with.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Search engine marketing can take your business from failure to success. Many business owners leave out search engine marketing since they have no clue what it is or how to achieve desirable results with search engine marketing. Instead they turn to methods such as posting to free classified ad sites. For example Craigslist. Posting on free classified ad sites will not bring your business the sales it and you need to survive. Posting on free classified ad sites will get you a small drop of potential customers if you are lucky or have great ad copy. Most business owners have neither. Many business owners do not realize the power of search engine marketing. Instead they place ads online and offline in classified ads. I will go into detail why search engine marketing hands down beats anyother type of marketing available offline and online. And I will also show you why search engine marketing beats posting in classified ads without a doubt.

First what is search engine marketing? Search engine marketing is marketing your website on search engines like Google and Yahoo. There are alot of search engines you can add your website to but the search engines which receive the most traffic are Google, Yahoo, and MSN. So those are the ones you should be most concerned about. Now there are two ways to market your websites on search engines. One is through organic listings and the other is Pay Per Click. Both are effective if you know or have someone who knows what they are doing. If not you will get nowhere and both can end up costing you lots of money.

Let's discuss search engines. Search engines consist of keywords, some keywords have more traffic than others. For example let's say you wanted to buy a dog, so you go to Google and type in the keyword "buy a dog". A list of dog businesses would pop up where you could purchase your dog from. Now let's go over how this can help out your business. Let's say you are in the plumbing business. Imagine what would happen if everytime someone typed in the keywords "plumbers or plumbing" and your site showed up. How much more business would your plumbing business get? A lot more. And remember these are all interested clients getting ahold of you.

So how does search engine marketing beat posting in classified ads, like Craigslist. First off with posting on free classified ads you must continually post your ads. Yes you may have a targeted audience but a majority of your competition will also be using free classified ads to advertise in. And what is going to separate your business from your competitions business? Nothing.

Here is the bottom line if you are not taking full advantage of search engine marketing you are missing the boat. There are a lot of potential customers you are missing by not using search engine marketing . One last thing to consider if you are going to hire an SEO company be sure to do your due diligence on the SEO company because there are many SEO companies who have no clue about search engine marketing.

The reason most people fail to make money online is because they have no internet marketing strategy. Or maybe they do have an internet marketing strategy in place but it is a strategy which does not work or is inefficient. Many people would achieve success online if they had a halfway decent internet marketing strategy in place. Some people farm the work out to marketing companies who also have no clue on how to market online. There are a few great internet marketing companies out there but their are so few of them. In order to have business success online you must have an internet marketing strategy in place and it must be an efficient interent marketing strategy. If it is an inefficient internet marketing strategy you will just be chasing your tail.

In order to create a halfway decent internet marketing strategy you must know what you are selling. And I mean you must really know what you are selling. You need to know how it benefits your potential customers. You need to know why they should buy your product and not your competitor's product. You need to really get to know your product. This is where a majority of people go wrong. They have no clue as to what product or service they are selling. Next you must have confidence your product or service can deliver what you are claiming it can deliver. If you do not have confidence in your product neither will your potential customers, thus equaling no sales. Next you need to find your target customer base. For instance you would not try to sell dog food to cat owners or sell cat food to dog owners. You might get a few sales but your overall marketing campaign would most likely be a waste.

After you figure out who your target customer base is you must figure out how to get your message across and out to them. Before we get into methods of marketing your product or service to your customer base, you need to be sure you have listed the benefits your product offers your potential customers. Many would be marketers do not focus enough on the benefits and our missing out bigtime by missing this step. Ok what you will need first is a website, you can also use an affiliate site if you have one. What you will need whether you have an affiliate site or personal website is an opt in form. An opt in form is where internet users can sign up to receive more additional info about your product or service through emails and regular mail. It takes the average consumer 7 views of a certain product before they buy. Be sure to include their mailing address, as mailing flyers and letters is a powerful form of offline marketing.

Now that you have your site up and running you need to drive traffic to it. You can drive traffic to your site through basic SEO techniques, PPC advertising, writing articles, writing press releases and posting in forums. This is a basic internet marketing strategy as you become more advanced in your marketing efforts you will learn other methods.

The reason most people fail to make money online is because they have no internet marketing strategy. Or maybe they do have an internet marketing strategy in place but it is a strategy which does not work or is inefficient. Many people would achieve success online if they had a halfway decent internet marketing strategy in place. Some people farm the work out to marketing companies who also have no clue on how to market online. There are a few great internet marketing companies out there but their are so few of them. In order to have business success online you must have an internet marketing strategy in place and it must be an efficient interent marketing strategy. If it is an inefficient internet marketing strategy you will just be chasing your tail.

In order to create a halfway decent internet marketing strategy you must know what you are selling. And I mean you must really know what you are selling. You need to know how it benefits your potential customers. You need to know why they should buy your product and not your competitor's product. You need to really get to know your product. This is where a majority of people go wrong. They have no clue as to what product or service they are selling. Next you must have confidence your product or service can deliver what you are claiming it can deliver. If you do not have confidence in your product neither will your potential customers, thus equaling no sales. Next you need to find your target customer base. For instance you would not try to sell dog food to cat owners or sell cat food to dog owners. You might get a few sales but your overall marketing campaign would most likely be a waste.

After you figure out who your target customer base is you must figure out how to get your message across and out to them. Before we get into methods of marketing your product or service to your customer base, you need to be sure you have listed the benefits your product offers your potential customers. Many would be marketers do not focus enough on the benefits and our missing out bigtime by missing this step. Ok what you will need first is a website, you can also use an affiliate site if you have one. What you will need whether you have an affiliate site or personal website is an opt in form. An opt in form is where internet users can sign up to receive more additional info about your product or service through emails and regular mail. It takes the average consumer 7 views of a certain product before they buy. Be sure to include their mailing address, as mailing flyers and letters is a powerful form of offline marketing.

Now that you have your site up and running you need to drive traffic to it. You can drive traffic to your site through basic SEO techniques, PPC advertising, writing articles, writing press releases and posting in forums. This is a basic internet marketing strategy as you become more advanced in your marketing efforts you will learn other methods.

There are very few internet marketing services worth while out there today. Many internet marketing services are just scams pure and simple. Many of these internet marketing services make promises they cannot and will not deliver on. Many people have lost a ton of money on these internet marketing services. Some of these internet marketing services include things like "We will send 1 million targeted hits to your website for 2999.95". Most of these internet marketing services are bogus. Many good and hardworking people are trying to make a living online and these sham internet marketing services take full advantage of that. Fully knowing they cannot deliver what they promise. As a business owner, affiliate marketer, or whatever you should be aware of these types of companies. You do not need your hard earned money going down the drain and making someone else rich. In order to know what is true and what is false you must become an educated Internet marketing professional.

Many of these so called internet marketing services would like to keep you uninformed and misinformed. Why? Because then they can lie and lead you along a dead end road until your bank account and entrepreneurial spirit are broke. The people running these internet marketing services are some of the lowest and unethical people I have ever come across. First off the Internet was supposed to be a place of education, these so called internet marketing services have sold out just to make a quick buck. Now there are some really great internet marketing services out there but they get a bad name because of the less worthy ones. Which really sucks for the solid internet marketing services.

I am assuming you are a business owner looking for an Internet marketing company to market your product or service online. Or maybe you are a home business owner trying to build a home business. Either way it doesn't matter you still need to know the true from the false. Unless of course, you enjoy giving your hard earned money away and if that is the case make the check out to Aaron Aldama. As a business owner or home business owner you must make it a point to become informed on Internet marketing. If you do not these scam artists who run these sham internet marketing services will take your money. For example let's take a look at these internet marketing services who promise you 1 million hits to your website. First off that is not even realistic but let's not even get into that. Let's get into where this so called traffic is coming from. Are these going to be 1 million unique hits? Meaning 1 million individual people or IP addresses will visit your website. Now that is completely bogus but let's go through it. Okay how will you as a business owner know where these hits are coming from, yes you can track the hits. But how will you know these are quality people actually visiting your site. You will not. There goes 300 to 2,000 dollars down the drain right there. The whole key when looking for internet marketing services is for you to become educated, so you can spot the legit internet marketing services from the scams.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Are you using Craigslist to advertise for your home business? If so you are not going to achieve the results you are looking for. Yes Craigslist does have an Alexa ranking of 8 and yes Craigslist does get boat loads of traffic to it's site. But advertising on Craigslist is not worth your time and if you are paying 25 bucks to advertise in certain cities, I will show you why it is not worth your money. With that being said if you are going to post your home business ads on free classified ad sites, Craigslist is the best. You shouldn't even bother to post to any other free classified ad sites besides Craigslist, that is if you are going to post on free classified ad sites. There are many other ways to effectively market for your home business. One other thing to think about, if you are solely using Craigslist as a way to advertise your home business, the chances of you building a successful home business are slim to none.

First off most people posting on Craigslist in the small biz section are just posting their own home business ads up. They are not looking to join up with any other home business owners. So yes posting an ad on Craigslist is very easy but it is also very ineffective. Your ad will most likely not end up helping you build your business. In order to be effective on Craigslist you must post your ads massively and to every city possible. Great problem solved, right? Nope, Craigslist has spiders who search for spammers and these spiders ban and flag the ads. What are some of the things which can get you flagged on Craigslist? Well posting the same ad to multiple cities can and will get your ads flagged and removed. Next posting multiple ads with the same IP address will get you banned permanently. Meaning any ad you post on Craigslist will get flagged before it even goes up. This happens if you spam with the same IP address, that IP address is banned for life. And it's hard to know if the Craigslist spiders consider your ads to be spam but if they do you are done. Another issue you will have to deal with when posting to Craigslist is other home business owners flagging your ads for no reason. Somewhere in their twisted minds they believe more people will see their ads if they flag and remove other home business owner's ads.

Now true posting an ad on Craigslist here and there is easy but it is not effective. And if you are posting ads like "Earn 6 Figures Overnight", most people are tuning those types of ads out. Now what I am suggesting will take more work but the payoff will be 100 times what you could ever imagine. Why not create your own website and learn how to market it effectively online, instead of posting a couple of ads to Craigslist. Imagine having your website located at the top of the search engines for a keyword like "home business". How powerful would your business be if you could land that spot? Very powerful. There are plenty of keywords to go around. That is just one effective way of building your home business besides posting on Craigslist.

Here is one thing I can guarantee you. The people making over 6 figure incomes from their home business are not using Craigslist to market their business.

"Make 100,000 dollars in 48 hours with our home business opportunity!""Make a six figure income only working 10 minutes a day with our home business opportunity!" These are just a few of the home business opportunity ads I see posted online everyday. First off these claims are entirely fake and if anyone can show me a home business opportunity where I can make 100,000 dollars in 48 hours or make 6 figures a year working only 10 minutes a day, please show me. I am all ears. These outrageous claims are false. These companies are scam artists plain and simple. Don't you think if it was that easy, everyone would be doing the same thing. It is very possible to make a lot of money with a home business opportunity but it will require work and the proper training. I wish I could tell you it was as easy as pushing a couple of buttons a day and then sitting back and watching your money roll in. But it does work that way. You must dedicate yourself to your home business opportunity in order for you to succeed. You must also have the proper training in order to succeed at your home business opportunity.

Many people join a home business opportunity with no training in running or marketing for a business what so ever. They are then told by their upline or sponsor to make of list of family and friends. Then to call that list and invite them to a conference call or hotel meeting. Sound familiar? If most people are lucky they may bring in one or two family members, if that. Most people do not even make it that far. The traditional trainings taught to build a home business opportunity do not work. Which explains why 90 percent of all home business owners are failing. They are duplicating and copying business methods which have been proven to be ineffective, period. The reason why these worthless techniques, such as making a list of your warm market, continue to get passed down from sponsor to sponsor is because no one really has a clue how to build a successful home business. So sponsors and uplines alike continue to give out worthless techniques full well knowing the techniques are ineffective.

As a home business owner you must take it upon yourself to learn how to properly build your home business opportunity into a successful venture. It is possible but first you will need training on how to properly build a home business. Once you properly know how to build a home business here are a few of things you will and should know. You will know how to get an unlimited amount of targeted prospects looking at your home business opportunity through various techniques. Such as getting your websites listed on the first page of Google, gaining traffic through press releases and article marketing. These are just a few techniques, that actually do work, that can help you build your home business. Once you learn real marketing techniques, which actually work, you will be well on your way to making the most out of your home business opportunity.

Article MarketingArticle Marketing: How to Build an EMPIRE Writing Five Articles a Month

Article Marketing: How to Build an EMPIRE Writing Five Articles a MonthDo you offer a truly brilliant product or service? Do youwish you had more leads to sell it to? Do you need todrive more revenue so you have cash on hand to spend onimplementing better and better ideas, or to bring onadditional staff?

If you are answering “yes&# 8221; to these questions,YOU NEED A MORE EXCEPTIONAL ONLINE PRESENCE THROUGH ARTICLE MARKETING!With so much business and research being done on theinternet these days, you absolutely have to be found there,and found at least a hundred different ways. Anything lessand you are missing out on TONS of business that you couldbe creating! Do you have any idea how much more revenueyou could be generating if you took the time to craft awell written article marketing campaign?

I’m telling you it’s millions!Let me show youhow…For the purpose of this article, we will already assumethat your website does an exceptional job of describing thepain of your customers (what are they looking for?),presenting your credentials (to help the visitor see whyyou are qualified to solve their problems), and providingthe solutions to your customer’ s everyday problems.We’ll assume that it is filled with calls to action(provocative statements intended to poke the visitor intodoing something) and opt-in opportunities (ways for you tocollect visitor’ s contact info).

If your website does not yet include all of these elementsaddress these issues first!If it does, READ ON AND LET’S DISCUSS THE POWER OF ARTICLE MARKETING.When people have a question, they go to Google, Yahoo orMSN and they type in a list of keywords or keyword phrases.The words they type determine the list that comes up onthe search engines and it is there that magic can happen. YOUR WORDS CAN APPEAR! Are they up there now?

TIME OUT: Go to a search engine and type in the keywordssomeone might use if they were looking for someone to solvethe problem that your business solves. Do you come up asthe solution? Do you come up in the organic list? Do youcome up multiple times? If not, keep reading!

YOU NEED ARTICLES OUT THERE DOING YOUR WORK FOR YOU!When someone is looking for a business like yours, doesyour voice ring out from the heavens, providing guidance,words of wisdom, and words of inspiration? Does Googlebring them to your front door and invite them in to lookaround?

Articles are like little sales people, and brilliantly,they are little sales people that you only have to hire onetime to work for you FOREVER. Let me say that again,because you probably didn’t hear me. Articles workfor you FOREVER. F-O-R-E-V-E- R.

The reason I emphasize this is because of the power of article marketing. Every time you put together an articleand send it out onto the internet, you are putting in placea sales person that will forever deliver your message. Dothat again and again and you are putting out a SALES FORCE—each of which you pay only once!WRITE ARTICLE, SUBMIT ARTICLE, REPEAT.WRITE ARTICLE, SUBMIT ARTICLE, REPEAT.WRITE ARTICLE, SUBMIT ARTICLE REPEAT.

Like the law of compounding interest with money —repeatedly putting out articles onto the internet willexponentially create value and generate more and more leadsfor your business. If you can commit to five articles permonth, at the end of three months, you’ll haveFIFTEEN (15) sales people talking your talk and introducingsearchers to your message and your SOLUTION to theirproblem. After six months, you’ve got thirty (30) ofthese sales people. At the end of one year, you’llhave sixty (60). After two years, you’ll have ONEHUNDRED AND TWENTY, and…

After three years, YOU’LL HAVE NEARLY 200 SALESPEOPLE delivering different and exceptional messages aboutyour business.And the most wonderful thing, is that they are all littlereplicas of you. So they are consistent. They deliverdifferent messages, present different solutions, coverdifferent topics, but they all express your uniquemethodology and the core values and spirit of YOUR business.

If you submit five articles per month, and generate $30,000per month in revenue, after three years, and one hundredand eighty articles you have the potential of driving$360,000 of monthly revenue. Yes, I said MONTHLY revenue. That’s more than 4 MILLION in annual revenue. Areyou kidding me?So why aren’t more people utilizing article marketing? The answer is — they are. But they arewriting terrible articles!!!! ! And they are killing theirbusinesses, because each article they are sending out isdoing BAD business for them, and doing it FOREVER!

1. IT MUST HAVE A CATCHY TITLE OR NO ONE WILL READ IT!We are a snippet society. We read everything in headlinesfrom newspaper stories, to search headlines, to booktitles. Titles grab us or they don’t. Make surethat yours is clever, provides the solution to thereader’ s problem, and utilizes your keywords!

2. YOUR OPENING PARAGRAPH NEEDS TO HIGHLIGHT THEREADER’ S PAIN.Look at the first paragraph of this article. Did it drawyou in? Did it help you to determine that this article hadvalue? Make the opening emotionally impacting by grabbingthe reader’ s attention and identifying with theirPAIN!

3. YOUR ARTICLE MARKETING MUST DELIVER VALUE.It must offer them a solution to their problem. GIVE AWAYYOUR SECRETS! Don’t be afraid to give your readerwhat they need for FREE. Chances are they are going torecognize that they would rather work with an expert thantry to solve this problem on their own. Give someone afish and they have dinner tonight. Teach them to fish andthey can feed themselves forever. But open a grocery storedown the street and chances are, they’ll buy the fishfrom you. People only have so much time in their days andif they find a trustworthy source that can make their lifeeasier or their business more profitable, they are going totake you up on it!

4. YOU MUST USE YOUR KEYWORDS WITHIN YOUR TEXT.The search engines are going to identify each article bythe words within it. So you have to be thinking about howpeople are going to find you. What words are they going touse in their searching? There are so many resources on thenet that can help you determine the right keywords. Findone and use it. Then repeat those words throughout yourarticle (just shy of being irritating about overusing them)and you’ll find greater success!

5. LASTLY, YOUR ARTICLE MARKETING MUST PROVIDE A CALL TOACTION.Lead the reader to do something. Whether it be to downloadyour eBook, call you directly, or click onto your website. Typically, you want to lead them to the next thing they canget for FREE. People like FREE. So lead them to yourwebsite, where they can download an eBook that solves thissame problem but in more depth, or better yet, offer them aFREE strategy session if they contact you by email. Makeit easy for them, like “Hey, I’ll even have myassistant set up a time for me to talk to you directly for20 minutes about ways you can build your business based onthese principles. FREE.”

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

What are the different types of Myspace Surveys out there? There are many types of Myspace Surveys out there. It just primarily depends on what you are looking for. Are you looking for something simple? Or something a little more in detail? Whatever type of Myspace survey you are looking for, I am sure you can find.

If you are looking for the simple types of Myspace Surveys there are many of those to choose from. Let me list a few for you. For instance this one is called:

Reveal A Little About Yourself

Do you have a bf/ gf?: Do you wish you were somewhere else?: Do you have plans for tonight?: Are you wearing makeup?: Are you wearing chapstick?: Are you cold?: Are you tired?: Are you excited?: Are you watching t.v.?: Are you wearing pajamas?: Who's the last person you IMed?: Who's the last person that called you?

Had any plans last week?: Who did you see most last week?: Was last week interesting?

TODAY Have you filled any Myspace Surveys? Have you cussed? Have you yelled at someone? Have you gotten mad at someone? Have you cried? Have you called more than 3 people?: Have you IMed more than 3 people?: Have you eaten anything gross?

SPILL YOUR GUTS

Q. First thing you did this morning?:

Q. Last thing you ate?:

Q. What's something you look forward to most in the next 6 weeks?

Q. What's annoying you right now?

Q. What's the last movie you saw?

Q. Do you believe in long distance relationships?:

Q Where is the last place you went?:

Q: Who is the last person you called?:

Q: Been cheated on?:

Q: Do you think that someone is thinking about you right now?

Q: Choose one to have (love, beauty, creativity):

Q: Do you wish on stars?:

Q: Does it work?:

Q: Do you untie your shoes every time you take them of:

Q: When did you last cry? .

Q: Do you like your handwriting?

Q: Are you a friendly person?

Q: Are you keeping a secret from the world?

Q: Who's bed did you sleep in last night?

Q: What color shirt are you wearing?

Q: Do you have any pets?

Q: What is the color of your bedsheets?

Q: What were you doing at 9 last night?

Q: last person you talked to : .

Q: When is the last time you saw your dad?

Q: Look to your left:

Q: Ever cried yourself to sleep?

Q: Ever cried on your friends shoulder?

Q: Song that makes you cry?

Q: Are you a normally happy person?

Q: Is your self-esteem low?

Q: What color are your eyes?

Q: Long or Short Hair :

Q: Current Music?

That is one of the most basic types of Myspace Surveys you will find out there. A more advanced Myspace Survey would be something like this:

What is the purpose of free radio stations?Free radio stations are way to listen to music without the advertisement and commercials from the major corporations. Now not all free radio stations are ad or commercial free, some radio stations do have ads and commercials. These are still free radio stations but free in a different way. These radio stations are free for you to listen to but they still charge for advertisement and commercial time.

The radio stations which charge for advertisement and commercial space differ big time from the radio stations which do not have advertisement or commercial space. First off radio stations which charge for ads and commercials have to cater to their sponsors. Don't you hate it when you are listening to a radio station and they go to commercial every 7 minutes? That is because they have to make room for all of their sponsor's ads and commercials to air. Normally the higher the ratings the more sponsor ads and commercials. Radio Stations which charge for on air ads and commercials cater to their paid advertisers. That is how they make their money. Before Howard Stern went to Satellite Radio if you ever watched his show you would notice how every 5 mins he would have to go to a commercial break, plus he was heavily censored on what he could say and what he could not say. The reason for this is two-fold. First Howard Stern had the number 1 show on the radio, so CBS was charging top dollar to get ad or commercial time during his show. The more commercial slots CBS could fill in the more money they made. Which butchered the show because they would go to a commercial break every five minutes. Now on the censorship, the big deal with censorship is the CBS company does not want Howard Stern to offend viewers. Not because they have high moral grounds but because they are afraid they may lose sponsors willing to pay for airtime on his show. Just look at what happened with Don Imus or Michael Vick, major corporations pulled theplug right away on the both of them because they did not want to lose customer sales.

With radio stations that charge for airtime there are many fine lines and politics they must follow. With radio stations who do not charge for airtime space they are in more control of what they play and what they say. The only problem with them is they do not normally make the same amount of income the larger stations make since they do not charge for airtime space. No matter which types of free radio stations you decide to listen to, just know when a station does not play commercials or play ads, you will get a better radio experience.

Free radio stations are the route many consumers are going since paid radio stations have way too many commercials. With free radio stations you will not have to listen to all of the garbage that goes along with them.

Everyone is looking to earn money online. Can you blame them? With the boom of the Internet everyone is looking to strike it rich. The Internet is the modern day gold rush with everyone looking to earn money online . The problem is just like the gold rush many people are looking to strike it rich overnight.This just doesn't happen unless you get lucky playing the Lotto or hit a winning slot machine in Vegas. And the chances of winning are totally stacked against you when you gamble or play the lottery. Now yes you can earn money online and large amounts of it as well but it will take work and effort. There is no free ride when working online.No matter what any online company promises you there are no quick fixes for anyone when it comes to earning money online.

One of the easiest ways to earn money online is to sell on Ebay. Think of Ebay as a large garage sale but buyers bid on your items.Now the hard part is finding products to sell on Ebay. Many people I know make a good living just from selling on Ebay alone.

Now you can take this one step further and create your own online business to earn money online. One of my friends use to make candles and sell them from her home. She was making a few bucks here and there. Then she decided to take her home business to the next level. First she created a website with all of her candles listed on the site. Next she realized she had no clue on how to drive traffic to her site. So she had to take some courses on Internet marketing. Once she figured out how to market online her business took off.

Which brings me to a different point. Many people want to earn money online. But the problem most people have is they have no clue how to market a product online. Which leaves them stuck in one place. Just like during the gold rush many people were flocking to the west to strike gold. Many of the people coming to the west in those times had no clue how to mine for gold and they went back home broke, cheated out of their money by con artists. Just like what is going on online today. Many hard working and honest people trying to earn money online are being cheated by con artists and crooks. If you have ever been suckered by an online company you know exactly what I'm talking about.

The key to earn money online is to become educated on how to market online. Once you understand how to properly market online you can earn money online selling just about any product. Do not buy into the hype of online companies promising to make you rich overnight, it does not happen. It takes work to earn money online and it doesn't happen overnight. But if you commit and work to earn money online you will open up a door of endless possibilities.

Free classified ads are becoming one of the main ways home business owners are using to advertise their home business. Free classified ads will not take your business to the next level. Anyone telling you otherwise is just lying to you. Free classified ads were intended to make people aware of garage sales, sell cars, and items of that nature. Free classified ads were not originally intended for home business, MLM and for other network marketers to advertise in. Free classified ads have pretty much been swarmed with ads of all types of businesses. Posting in free classified ads will not get you the results you desire because there are way too many ads being posted. Most of the people in these sites are just looking to post their ad to get someone to signup for their opportunity. They are not looking to join another opportunity. This is just something to keep in mind if you are using free classified ads.

The reason why so many home business owners and MLMer's are posting their ads in free classified ads sites is for one reason, and one reason only. They have no clue how to really market online, offline or in market in any other sense. I am also willing to bet that they do not have the funds to setup a halfway decent marketing campaign. Many people posting to free classified ad sites are not making any money. They are just hoping and praying someone clicks on their ad so they can make a sale.This is not entirely their fault. Many of these MLM companies offer no real training for their reps. They pretty much give you a replicated site and tell you to make money on your own. Many MLM companies are just in it to make the quick buck and leave you high and dry. Which explains why so many home business owners turn to the easiest and most common form of advertising, free classified ads.

For those of you willing to put in the work and looking for a more effective way to get your business out there read on. I will go over a few ways which work much more effectively than posting with free classified ads.

First writing articles and press releases is a very effective way to gain exposure for your business. Writing articles and press releases help you gain exposure. You will have to write and submit articles and press releases daily, in order to be fully effective. Writing one or two articles will not cut it.

Another excellent way to gain traffic for your business is learning how to drive your website to the top of the search engines. Having your site on the first page of Google for a particular keyword is an excellent way to drive business to your website. Now I know you maybe thinking, I have no clue how to get my sites on the first page of Google. Well http://www.zipbz.com offers excellent training on how to get top listings on Google.

These are just a few ways to gain exposure for your business. There are many other effective forms of marketing which produce great results besides just posting to free classified ads. I will be completely honest with you, if your only form of advertising is posting to free classified ads, your business will not make it.

It is fun to watch people of all ages go online and served for home business ideas. For many the idea of an Internet business is intimidating. The reason for this is because they do not know how Internet marketing works as a business.

In this article we want to look at the question would Internet marketing be a good business idea for you to do at home.

There is no doubt that online marketing can be a difficult business to be in. It is different than off line marketing that traditional brick-and-mortar businesses have used in the past. For it to work for you, you're going to have to learn some of the techniques successful Internet marketers use.

First of all you need to understand what audience you are targeting specifically for the product you sell. If you do not have a product you can quickly find one by joining various affiliate marketing programs. Regardless of what you choose to sell it is important that your target market is ready to purchase your product.

Many overlook this point and began promoting a product that there is no interest in. This means doing market research to determine the home business that you want to promote on the Internet. You may want to hire this done for you by a marketing research company or take the time to learn how to do it yourself.

It is important that you understand that Internet marketing is really a campaign for your business. Just as politicians work tirelessly to get their message out you will be doing the same thing for your new home business.

Some of the strategies that you will be implementing, and promoting your Internet marketing business, will include search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, and various forms of online marketing such as article marketing and email marketing.

Your home business will only be as good as your ability to promote it online if you choose to do Internet marketing. Ultimately for long-term success that will mean getting your website address on as many other websites as possible. This is known as a back link and is really the key to long-term traffic. The more of these you have the more traffic you can potentially get.So, is Internet marketing a good home business idea? It can be an excellent idea, if you are willing to learn the techniques to be successful.

Joel Nickerson invites you to visit his home business idea website if you want information you can trust. If you are a home business opportunity seeker he can help you. For ideas and opportunities to make money that really work click here now: ---> http://www.instant-home-biz.com/

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

So you have just started your first home business. Congratulations now the real work begins. No matter what anyone or any company may have promised you before you signed up, building a successful home business will take work. Many home business companies will promise you the world and not deliver anything. I truly believe it is possible to be successful in any home business venture you maybe in. But it will take work, determination and effort on your part. It also helps if you have a committed upline who is willing to help you grow and learn as a business owner. There are many different aspects to building a home business but I will focus on the aspects which I feel matter the most. These are the aspects which will help you build a solid foundation for your home business. So just to clear up the air a little bit, let me point out a couple of facts before we get started. First there is no such thing as get rich quick. Second there is not such thing as only working on your home business 10 minutes a day. Yes you can only work your home business for 10 minutes daily but your results will not be very good. Third if you truly commitment to building a home business, you can and will be successful.

First you will need your own web site. Your replicated site will not work. You will want to drive traffic to your web site. There are different methods of driving traffic to your web sites. First if you have the money you can post ads in newspapers offline. This is a great way to build your home business. Of course the bigger the newspaper the bigger the cost is to advertise. Normally the results will be very good if it is a large publication. You can also advertise in magazines as well. When advertising in magazines try to focus on magazines which cater to the customer you are trying to market to. It makes no sense to advertise in a magazine about fishes if you are selling vitamins. Instead find vitamin magazines. I would not suggest advertising in flyers, they are not really effective and you have to have a lot of flyers spread out everywhere just to get a few prospects.

Next there is online advertising. Normally everyone jumps to the free classified ad sites to post for their home business. Now in order to be effective with free classified ads you have to post a lot. And I mean a lot. I honestly feel it is not worth your time and effort to post your home business ads to free classified ads. First mostly everyone posting on free classified ad web sites is posting their home business opportunity. Next what is going to make your home business stand out from all of the other ones. Nothing, it is a crap shoot when posting on free classified ad sites.

Next PPC or Pay Per Click is a very effective way to drive traffic to your web site. But here is what I suggest unless you already know how to run an effective PPC campaign, hire a pro to run your campaign for you. Remember this is a business just because it is a home business doesn't mean you should treat it any differently. Businesses reach out to contractors when they need help in certain areas and you should do the same. If you have the cash I would even suggest going as far as hiring a marketing firm to market for you.

Lastly you could start an organic SEO campaign to show up in search engines. You could also hire a pro to do this for you but I would be very cautious when looking for an SEO pro or company. There are many out there who have no clue on what they are doing.

When first starting your home business getting traffic to your web site is key. It's simple no one sees your web site, no one buys your product. The quicker you are able to start making a profit with your home business, the stronger your conviction will be that you made the right choice.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Building a home business can be an interesting experience. Home business has created a wonderful avenue for individuals to benefit from building the business. What are some of the ways that individuals can benefit from building a home business?

In information age, through wonderful platforms such as the Web 2.0 in the internet development, home business has given individuals the fantastic opportunity to learn about the different types of knowledge such as internet development, business education and personal development that includes management, leadership and analytical skills.

The benefits of home business include firstly, it gives the individuals the opportunity to learn and share . Through home business, individuals can share knowledge and expertise among each other. The benefit of such wonderful sharing is that it promotes learning about team work. Individuals are able to leverage on each other strengths. Through such team work, it can produce great results. For example, Pete has a great product but he was having difficulties in promoting and marketing the product. Through web 2.0 platform on the internet, he met John. John introduced him to Tom. Tom has good networking skills. Together, the three of them worked together and leveraged on each other strengths. Working together, they are able to build a good business team. From the example above, we can observe that home business enable individuals with different strengths to work together as a team well.

Secondly, the benefit of such business is that it gives opportunity for people across the globe to learn and build networks among themselves. Using fantastic tools such as Web 2.0 in the internet, friendships and partnerships can be formed between people from different parts of the world. Through such internet and business platforms, people can also learn and benefit from different cultures around the world.

Thirdly, home business enable individuals to develop in areas such as emotional intelligence,time management,organizational, communication and problem solving skills. Through dealing with difficult and challenging situations in the development of their home business, individuals will have great opportunity to develop in such areas.

In the information age, home business has enable individuals to develop great wealth, knowledge and instill great fun in doing such wonderful business. Home business also gives the individuals the opportunity to develop continual learning spirit in them. "All of the top achievers I know are life-long learners... Looking for new skills, insights, and ideas. If they're not learning, they're not growing... not moving toward excellence." - Denis Waitley.

Visit Raufvidasuccess.com Blog for educational tools on areas such as home based business, entrepreneurship, financial education, internet marketing, internet development and personal development for success.

Friday, December 14, 2007

So you just started your first home business and now you're ready to make millions. Well first let me congratulate you on having the marbles to start your first home business. Many people allow their fear to hold them back from achieving their goals in life. With that being said you must also understand your home business will not build itself, you are going to have to work daily in order to build a successful home business and achieve your financial dreams. No matter what anyone has told you, building a home business does require work and daily effort. If you were thinking you could cash huge checks and not lift a finger you should get that mentality out of your head now. Your home business requires time and effort just like any other business would. It really helps if you also have a great supporting cast around you but it is not necessary if you have the will and determination to become successful. Remember where there is a will, there is a way. And there is always a way.

Ok what is the first thing you should do when starting your home business. You should first setup your marketing campaign. Marketing equals sales, and sales are key. Marketing is the key to your business. You must market. Now if you have no clue on how to market you can do one of two things.First if you have the money, you can hire a marketing company to market your business for you. You will have to do your due diligence when choosing a marketing company. Many marketing companies cannot walk their talk and will take your money and leave you with little or no results. Or you could learn how to market which can prove to be invaluable to you and your home business. Like the saying goes "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." You will need to find a training course, business mentor, or live training to learn how to market. If you can also learn how to market online that is 100 times better. Once you learn how to market online and offline effectively you and your home business will become a powerhouse. For example there is company called Mentors On A Mission which offers exclusive training and courses on how to properly build and market a home business located at http://www.zipbz.com. I truly believe once you learn how to market you can pretty much sell any decent item and make a great living for yourself and your family.

Next once you have cash flow coming in, I would get with a tax specialist. Setting up your taxes is another key element when starting your home business. I see many business owners do their taxes on their own. Unless you have had professional training in setting up taxes, I would not do it myself. It's a pretty simple process hire a bookkeeper to keep track of your accounting info. Then review the info with your tax guy. A great tax guy can help you setup or refer you to professionals who will help you setup corporations. They will teach you how to make the most of your money and teach you the advantages you have as a home business owner compared to just being an employee. It also helps to have professionals just in case you get audited by the IRS.

I believe these are the two most important parts when starting a home business or any business for that matter.

Today many people online and offline are looking for the best home business to join. Many people are looking for the home business that will make them rich. Many are looking for that home business that requires little if any work and produces huge results overnight.This is the something for nothing approach which many people take with them when looking for and starting a home business. People are looking for the best home business ever. Many people are missing the boat when it comes to looking for a solid home business. Instead of looking at what counts like training, mentoring, and the overall home business itself. They are looking at how much they can make with little or no work. Plus many people want results overnight. There is no such thing as the best home business ever. There is no such thing as a home business that will make you rich overnight. And there is no such thing as a home business that will make you rich with you only working 10 minutes a day. All of these claims are false but what is true is you can become very wealthy by starting and running a home business.

You see your home business is just a vehicle to get you from point A to point B. Think of a home business as a car. If you know the basics of operating a car, you will know how to drive almost any car model out there. Just like a home business, it doesn't matter what home business opportunity you join, if you know how to build a home business you will succeed. See many people think the home business makes you rich but that is false, it is the home business owner that makes the business successful or unsuccessful. Having a home business is just like having a car, when you get into your car you have to start it and push the gas pedal in order for you to go anywhere. The same goes for home business, you have to start it and work your home business in order for it to go anywhere. You don't expect your car to drive you around and you shouldn't expect your home business to succeed without your involvement and effort.

Now of course, just like cars, home business opportunities vary from business to business. There are great home business companies out there and there are not so great home business opportunities out there. Just like car models a BMW is 100x a better car then a Pinto but regardless of which car you are driving, the mechanics of driving a car stay the same. The same goes for your home business, it really doesn't matter what home business you are in if you understand how to build a home business. The mechanics of building a home business stay the same.

The whole point of this whole article is to get you to see that you make or break your home business. The company has very little to do with you succeeding or not succeeding. The responsibility falls on your shoulders. You could join the best home business in the world and still end up unsuccessful. Or you could join the worst home business in the world and still end up a huge success. It all falls on you. It's not the companies fault if your home business is not succeeding, it is yours.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Building a home business from scratch can be a daunting task, especially for a person with no previous business experience. Not having any business experience should not stop you from pursing a home business from scratch. There are going to be many things you will need to setup for your home business. Remember you can always join a home business opportunity and let them take care of all the headache work for you. The choice is yours. Once you have your home business up and running the rewards will be well worth it.

Well first you need something to offer. You need a service, product, or item. For example I know many stay at home moms who set up home day care businesses. Needless to say these home day care businesses are very profitable. So first find your niche, and then build around it. Your home business can be based around anything you like. Get creative and use your imagination. I read a story about a girl in high school who built a home business designing myspace templates for her friends in her spare time. The small home business she started is now a multi-million dollar company. Many major corporations were built in someone's basement, garage, or bedroom. Like Dell and Amazon. As long as their is a market for it, you can sell it.

Next you will need to setup your merchant accounts because you will need to accept payments. Be sure to deal with reputable companies because online fraud is huge. You want your customers and your home business to be protected and if your website gets hacked, it could really ruin your home business. It also helps if you are able to accept all types of credit cards. Only accepting certain credit or debit cards will lose you business. Another account to setup is a Paypal business account. Many customers shopping online will feel much more secure paying through Paypal instead of having to type in their card numbers on your website.

There are other things you will need to setup with your home business like customer service support, your refund policy, packaging and shipping, and getting the required licenses,if needed. But we will focus on something a little more important. Why? Because you could have the perfect home business setup, with the perfect website but if you do not have a consistent flow of customers it will all be for nothing.

So the question becomes how are you going to market your home business? Are you going to market your home business online? What is your monthly marketing budget? Marketing your home business is huge, you cannot afford to not market your home business. If you have the money I would even suggest hiring a professional marketing company to market your home business for you.

These are just a few of things you will need when starting a home business. The key thing is to remember, marketing is vital for your home business. All the other stuff is needed but marketing gives your home business life.

Here is a common problem I see with many home business owners. They end up falling in love with whatever home business, product or service they are marketing. Now I am not knocking anyone who is in love with their home business. You know whatever floats your boat. But being too emotional about your home business can actually hurt your business. And I will also go into some other home business practices I find to be worthless. First you should believe in your home business and have confidence in marketing it to the masses. But you must understand your home business is a vehicle used to get you from point A to point B. Your home business is being used to help you reach whatever goal or dream you have in life. Just like if you fly from Los Angeles to New York City you do not have to love the plane in order to take the trip. The plane is just used to take you from point A to point B just like your home business. You owe no loyalty to one company and you should not feel tied down to one home business opportunity. Remember home businesses are just vehicles to take you to your goals in life, that's it nothing more. You do not have to be loyal to one home business, you should create multiple streams of income with many different home businesses.

The next gimmick I see is home business meetings where everyone is cheering and chanting. I remember my first MLM meeting and I remember walking in and thinking everyone was on something. After a few meetings I realized most of the crowd was broke and just trying to fake the funk. You do not have to cheer and chant in order to be successful at your home business. Building a home business should not be like joining a cult. Your home business should be run like a business. And in business results matter not hype.

You should take this approach to your recruiting efforts as well. Do not let anyone join your downline who does not meet your standards. Do a screening process before you allow anyone to work with you. The reasons for this are plentiful. First off this is YOUR HOME BUSINESS, treat it as such. You only want quality people around you, take nothing less. If you do happen to take on a bad apple it could ruin your team and will drain your energy. I make it clear to anyone joining my team that I am available for support but I am not here to be a babysitter. I make it clear that this is their business and they must work in order to make it a success. Keep your relationships with your team at a professional level, period. You need to make it clear this is a business, and we are here to help grow our business, that's it. If you do start personal relationships with your team, you will see your profits dwindle and much of your time will be used playing team psychologist's instead making your home business grow.

This may seem a little too cutthroat but you must understand you cannot allow anyone to waste your time or energy. And especially when running a home business you will run across all types of characters. You must run a tight ship in order to be successful in your home business and you must understand home businesses make it possible for you to live out your financial dreams, so it is always great to have more than one.

Of course it is! Running a home business is one of the great ways a person with little or no business experience can build a great financial future for themselves and their family. Think about it for a small fee you can become licensed to sell a product and receive all the advantages big corporate businesses have. That is what I call leverage. Home businesses give any person, anywhere, a chance to create a better life for themselves. Home businesses also give you great tax deductions and incentives. Any person can start and build successful home business for themselves. You do not need a college education, or even a high school education for that matter. No matter what sex, race, or religion you are a home business opportunity can be taken advantage of by anyone.

Think about it. To start a traditional business your costs will be in the thousands. If you wanted to start a restaurant you first need the startup money. So you would have to apply for a business loan or you may have the money but you are looking at least 30k just to start the restaurant up. Then you would have to setup all the legal paperwork, insurance for employees and customers, find a location, and other business expenses. And all of this is before you have even made your first dollar. It would at least take you 1 to 2 years to begin to have a return on your investment. with a home business you have none of that stuff to deal with. You sign up, setup your marketing campaigns and start selling.

Next if you want to start a franchise you will first need them money. Like for instance a McDonald's franchise/restaurant sells for about 1 million. And most major franchises will not even talk to you unless you have a certain number of years running a successful business.

The tax advantages of running a home business are awesome. First did you know whether or not you are earning money with your home business you can still write off losses with your home business . And save money on your earned income(the income you earn from a job). The next thing to realize is running a home business is different than being a employee or self employee. I'd hate to break it to you but there are different tax laws for the different types of income you make. As an employee or self employee you are highly limited to what you can write off. But as a home business owner the sky is the limit. Get this a majority of your expenses as a home business owner will be paid with pretax dollars, the government does not take taxes out like they do from your paycheck. And if you're incorporated you even get to decide when you want to pay taxes for the following year. Also be sure to hire a good CPA to prepare and file your taxes, and get this the cost for your CPA is a tax deduction.

Starting a home business makes complete sense. These are just a few of the reasons why running a home business can be so lucrative and profitable.